Comedian Kathy Griffin was permanently banned from Twitter Sunday afternoon after she impersonated Elon Musk, who recently bought the company and nows serves as its CEO.
Griffin’s account had been temporarily restricted after she impersonated Musk by changing her profile photo to his photo and changing her user name to “Elon Musk,” even though her handle remained as “@kathygriffin.”
She f'd around and found out. pic.twitter.com/SWacgH1lpL
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 7, 2022
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted. “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.”
“This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue,” Musk continued. “Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.”
“Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world,” Musk later added. “That’s our mission.”
Musk also explained that banning accounts for impersonation does not go against his views on free speech. “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” Musk tweeted.
My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022
Twitter has explicit rules prohibiting the impersonation of other people. “You may not impersonate individuals, groups, or organizations to mislead, confuse, or deceive others, nor use a fake identity in a manner that disrupts the experience of others on Twitter,” the company’s terms of service says.
The company does make exceptions for parody accounts but the accounts have to clearly state that they are parody and are not the entity that they pretending to be.
“If we determine a profile features another’s image, we will also evaluate the context in which the image is used,” the terms of service state. “We are most likely to take action if an account falsely claims to be the entity portrayed in the profile photo, as with impersonation or fake accounts.”
Twitter has seen a substantial drop off in advertiser revenue since Musk became CEO as left-wing activists have pressured companies to suspended their partnerships with the platform because those activists want Musk to use a heavy hand in policing what speech is allowed.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk tweeted. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
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